China Mieville wins third Arthur C Clarke Award

Mieville's The City and the City - a crime fiction novel which features strong elements of fantasy - saw off competition from a shortlist which included former winner Gwyneth Jones to clinch the GBP 2,010 prize.

Speaking to the Guardian, Mieville explained that The City and the City was his first foray into crime fiction and he attempted to stay true to the conventions of the genre.

'Crime readers will denounce a book because it has "cheated" and I wanted to write a book that didn't cheat, that was faithful to crime rules and that if you'd never read any fantasy you could pick up,' he commented.